The annual Spring Beer and Wine Fest kicks off the annual beer festivals here in Portland. I never miss one, and you shouldn’t miss it either!

When I first started going to beer fests I noticed that a lot of people were getting inebriated, but didn’t seem to be enjoying the fest as much as others. So I began to people watch, and I found out some very interesting things seem to be consistently going on. First off, I saw that whenever you drink the same beer or beer styles, you seem to lose the ability to be able to taste those beers adequately after a few beers. So I went in search of a method to really scrub my palate so that I could revisit those styles, and enjoy them all over again. What I came up with is a method I call Antipodal Tasting in which you taste opposite flavored beers serially. If, for example, you started with a Pale Ale, then you should try the antipode, or opposite style beer which would be a malt forward beer like a German Dunkel, or a Brown Ale or a Porter. By alternating beers like this you can actually taste those different styles, and enjoy them even more. Another thing I did, was take notice of what my older friends like Fred Eckhardt were doing. Fred is an advocate of proper hydration, and since beer contains alcohol, a known diuretic, he recommended to me to drink an equal amount of fresh water with every beer. I’ve been doing that ever since, and even though my trips to the local facilities have increased, my enjoyment of fine beers have also increased. One final thought, and that’s about the loss of important essential nutrients while imbibing. When I owned a drug testing lab, I monitored my blood glucose, serum cholesterol, and electrolytes. What I discovered was quite surprising, actually. My glucose went up, serum cholesterol went down, and electrolytes were low. So after much research, I discovered that unsalted Almonds, or Cashews would not only lower the glucose, they also raised the beneficial essential fatty acids and electrolytes that you need to maintain your homeodynamic balance of human bodily systems. So you’ll always see me eating some Cashews or Almonds and drinking water with every other beer I taste. I hope to see more people doing these small things, and appreciating beer more, and look forward to many more beer fests to come this year and into the future!